ROME (AP) – While the world has said goodbye – or good relief – until 2020, a year in which the pandemic has brought billions and pain to billions, some of those who fought the virus on the front lines have even as the clock passed midnight.
At the Casalpalocco Covid 3 hospital on the outskirts of Rome, doctors and nurses seemed to be barely recording the new year, as they cared for 100 patients facing serious or serious illnesses as a result of coronavirus infections.
In an intensive care unit, all but one of the beds were occupied. The medical staff calmly treated the patients who were in dimly lit rooms, distributed medicines, checked the respiratory systems and filled in the medical files.
“This (New Year’s Eve) is a surreal night, just like Christmas, just like Epiphany, just like last Easter and all the other holidays,” said Dr. Paolo Petrassi, the night shift coordinator. “They are, say, holidays detached from what was once the real world, as we have known it forever.”
The 53-year-old recounted the experience now known to so many in the medical profession around the world who have had to treat patients with COVID: having to constantly monitor patients and manage their condition, each with their own set of problems. complicated.
More than 83 million coronavirus infections have been confirmed worldwide and more than 1.8 million deaths. Together with the elderly, the medical staff was particularly hard hit, struggling to save patients even if their own colleagues fell ill with a disease that no one could have imagined a year ago.
“Everything was unexpected,” Petrassi told The Associated Press.
Italy was the early epicenter of the pandemic in spring Europe. Images with Italian nurses and doctors, exhausted as they briefly removed their protective gear, became a sign of what would happen to their colleagues in Spain, France, the United States and elsewhere, months later.
Last month, after a summer in which Italy seemed to have defeated the scourge, it again became the country with the highest number of deaths in Europe.. And once again, the gloomy reality was reflected in his eyes of medical staff in Italy.
“Now we are almost 12 months into this pandemic, and unfortunately we still can’t say it’s over,” Petrassi said. “We only hope for mass vaccination, which we hope will help control this harmful phenomenon.”
European regulators approved the first vaccine shortly before Christmas. European Union countries began administering gunfire on December 27, but it will be a long time before a significant number of the bloc’s 450 million inhabitants are immunized.
Experts say that at least 60-70% of the population should be vaccinated to prevent the virus.
Petrassi hopes the COVID nightmare will end soon.
“We all live in uncertainty, but at the same time we all hope and do what we can,” he said. “We use all our professional and physical resources, our knowledge, our conscience, giving up time with our families, ours and the free time of our loved ones.”
“We are investing all this so that all these efforts are not in vain.”
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